Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) Read online

  “Nobody listens to me anymore,” he said plaintively. “Three types of magic, I said. You have one and two, and you can’t have three, but you do. I need peace and quiet to work it out. And the village is still sideways.”

  Perfectly well aware that he was only trying to change the subject, Poly said crossly: “I wish you wouldn’t do things to me without asking! And it’s my spellpaper, after all!”

  “I should start talking to the gremlins. At least they listen to me.”

  A muted yik followed by a shower of woodchips suggested otherwise, but Luck ignored them grandly.

  “Why are you sneaking around in my library? Where did you get an Invisibility spell? And how did you get it to do that?”

  Poly, all at sea, sat down on the desk with her ankles crossed and tried to decide if it was worth making any of the protestations or asking any of the questions she wanted to ask. Finally, she decided on a single question.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Unmagic. I told you, Poly. Three kinds of magic.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, then; you should understand.”

  “Luck, I want my spellpaper back.”

  “Three kinds of magic that all work together but aren’t ever found together. It’s impossible. Except sometimes when it’s not.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” said Poly wearily. “But I want–”

  “No you don’t,” contradicted Luck. “You can’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t keep bleating about not having magic. Or doing spells that are impossible.”

  Bewildered all over again, Poly was betrayed into repeating the oft-repeated mantra: “But I haven’t got magic!”

  “Huh. I thought you’d stopped saying that. You didn’t lose more of your memory when you woke up, did you, Poly?”

  “Well, like you said before, I wouldn’t know, would I?” said Poly, beginning to feel distinctly sulky. “What did you do to me?”

  “It was an Invisibility spell with a Soundless clause, three kinds of dampers, and worked in unmagic.” Luck sat back down in his chair, lounging at ease but with a sharper-than-usual gaze directed at her beneath his lashes. “A beautiful, impossible spell. And I didn’t do it. But while you’re here, Poly–”

  “No!” said Poly hurriedly, careless of whether it was one of Luck’s misdirections or an actual threat. “I’m going out. Please don’t forget Annie’s field! There’s only a little planting time left now.”

  She left while Luck was still muttering something about flirting in the moonlight and negligent pet owners, which fortunately reminded her to look in on Onepiece before she left the house. Michael and Margaret had come by just after noon, while Michael was supposed to be eating his lunch, and had entertained Poly through the kitchen window while Luck did something fiddly with one of Norris’ inventions. Before leaving they’d told her about a moonlight walk that was to stealthily occur tonight when the village was asleep; and between Michael’s ridiculous pleading and Margaret’s rather alarming prognostications of a great many stolen moonlight kisses, Poly hadn’t found herself able to say no. It was too entrancing to be a part of the revels instead of an onlooker.

  Onepiece was in his little boy form when Poly tucked the sheets securely around him, much to her satisfaction. He was uneasily asleep, but her instinctive pat on the head made him suck in a quick, sniffy little breath and open his eyes.

  “Pretty magic!” he said, smiling up at her. “Not sneezy.”

  “Yes, darling. Go to sleep, now.”

  “Poly sleep, too?”

  “Not right now. I’m going for a walk.”

  “Onepiece wants walks, too!” said Onepiece indignantly, pawing the sleep from his eyes.

  “I know, darling. But you have to sleep now”

  “Poly sleep. Not leave Onepiece alone!”

  Fortunately for Poly’s slender parenting skills, the puppy was still only half awake; and by the time she’d reiterated in a soft voice that he was staying in bed, and Onepiece had muttered sulkily into his sheets, he was all but fast asleep once more. Poly stroked his hair for some time after in spite of this, feeling a little bit sorry, and a little bit fond, and suddenly a little bit terrified, because all of Onepiece’s sleeping thoughts said: Mum.

  The night was a pleasant one. Poly found herself dizzily talking to more young men than she could ever recall knowing before, and being ignored by nearly as many of the village girls, who tended to eye her in somewhat gloomy resentment and ask leading questions about Luck, his schedule, and even (from one bold, sparkling redhead) his preferences as to hair colour.

  Poly gave the redhead a fascinated look and truthfully said that she didn’t know, to which the redhead replied with another barrage of questions, each more personal than the last, until Poly was rescued by Ronin. His requests after her–nephew, is it, Miss Poly? Ah, brother, of course–made the redhead chuckle in a manner that she didn’t quite like, but when Poly informed them both quite calmly that Onepiece was in bed and asleep she seemed to lose interest in the subject. Much to Poly’s relief, the young lady was caught up in a sudden rush of young men who were determined to show off their magical prowess by levitating a select few ladies over the tiny stream they’d come upon, and was soon to be seen bobbing merrily over the foot-wide trickle with her ankles primly crossed.

  “Lovely girl!” said Ronin with a cutting edge of sarcasm in his voice. He swept Poly across the stream in one fluid motion, and she thanked him with some amusement. She could have stepped across it without breaking stride. How different it was from walking with Luck, who was more likely to plough into the middle of a stream without noticing it than he was to bethink himself to help her over it. Two village lads on the other side reached out eagerly to receive her on the other side, and Poly couldn’t help laughing at their unashamed interest: they reminded her of Onepiece in possession of a new toy.

  Ronin gave her up with a wry smile, but said teasingly: “Miss Margaret won’t be happy if you purloin all her beaux, Poly!”

  Since she remembered these particular boys waiting impatiently for a dance from Margaret at the ‘happening’ not long since, Poly felt a twinge of unease that only intensified when she caught Margaret watching her thoughtfully as the evening progressed. After that, she stayed determinedly with Michael, who was outspokenly willing to have her with him; and, moreover, was quick to cook her sausages and provide her with chocolates.

  Poly arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning, shutting the front door behind her and guiltily tiptoeing across the obstacle-strewn main room. Luck was still awake, his figure vaguely visible through the library wall. There were two gremlins on his desk, one yik-yiking in a vehement fashion as it pointed at a section of Poly’s spellpaper and another, younger one attempting to make a meal of the topmost corner with its sharp teeth. To Poly’s surprise, Luck did little more than poke the hungry gremlin away from the paper with one finger, producing a scrap of cheese for it to eat instead; and as she passed the library he said to the other gremlin: “Yes, I can see that. But there’s nothing in there that deals with antimagic. It only mentions two powers.”

  She called out a sleepy good morning in passing, grinning when she heard the startled “Morning?” from the library, and climbed into bed too early to catch Margaret sneaking in from the other side of the room.

  Poly slept heavily and woke with difficulty to find that her hair was ominously long once again. Fortunately, Onepiece had prodded her in the ribs until she woke, and he trotted gleefully behind her with handfuls of hair as she wandered drowsily down the hall to find Luck. The halls were fuzzy, and though Poly was awake enough to be alarmed at it, she couldn’t work up the will to do anything more than yawn and avoid the worst of the obstacles that littered Luck’s floor. That some of the obstacles seemed to be people, she was dimly aware, and she was likewise aware that Onepiece’s odd magic had gone very prickly.

  He said: “No touch!” in a tight little voice to the fuzzy figures, de
fensively huddling her hair closer to his chest, and scowled at them all until he and Poly had passed through to the library.

  The blurry swirl of green and gold that was Luck said: “Huh. Having trouble again? You may as well sit down in here: there’s nothing I can do about it that your hair isn’t already doing.”

  Poly did so, instinctively finding a comfortably stacked pile of books close to the reassuring presence that was Luck, and felt Onepiece climb into her lap.

  “Poly should come to bed earlier,” he said crossly, and Poly smiled faintly. It was oddly comforting to watch Luck wandering the library with blue and white streamers of an unknown magic trailing after him. She let herself fall back into a half-doze, sleepily entranced actually feel the curse pushing and her hair growing, cancelling each other out.

  Luck came and checked on her periodically, muttering unintelligible things beneath his breath, but once she heard him say: “That’s right, Poly. Let it push at you: I won’t let it get too strong.”

  She became more and more awake by degrees; first to feel the growth of her hair slowing while the push of the curse became less irresistible, and then to feel the thin little arms that were wrapped around her waist. Onepiece’s head, she discovered, was lying on her chest: he was fast asleep and snoring occasionally. She hadn’t fallen over, much to her own surprise, but when she woke a little more thoroughly Poly found that this was because Luck had piled more books around her, effectively hemming her into her own little corner. She couldn’t help feeling that this was uncharacteristically thoughtful of him, and when he wandered past again with a patchily spelled cloak dangling from one arm, Poly gave him the warm smile she usually reserved for Michael. This made Luck stop in his tracks and gaze warily at her, his head tilted back, and Poly wondered with a faint sense of shock if she smiled at him so little that it was an occasion for surprise when she did so.

  “I haven’t helped much today,” she said, so that she wouldn’t have to think about it. Everything with Luck was always just a little bit uncomfortable: he took liberties, he never listened, and he very rarely deigned to notice anything that didn’t interest him. How could she help it if she’d scowled at him more than she smiled? But she still said, for that and for today: “Sorry.”

  “I didn’t need you,” said Luck absently; and even if that was insulting, at least it was reassuring.

  He was still observing her, his eyes for once entirely and completely green with not a golden speck of magic to be seen, and Poly, finding herself uncomfortable and slightly flushed, said: “Can you get rid of the hair again?”

  “What? Oh yes, the hair. Well, I could do with a few more specimens: the last lot were no good at all. I might have to try something different this time.”

  He knelt in front of her, parting the gathered hair to find a bare spot for his knees. Poly, who had intended to rise and seat herself on Luck’s chair in a civilised manner for the operation, found herself, as usual, with nowhere to retreat.

  “Spell!” she said warningly to Luck, as the spelled cloak in his arms sent an arcing spit of blue-ish magic flying into her hair.

  “Huh,” said Luck, looking down at the cloak in faint surprise. “Where did that come from?”

  “You were already carrying it. I don’t think it likes me.”

  “It doesn’t like anyone,” Luck said dismissively, laying the battered thing carefully down behind the wall of books. “It’s a Cloak of Hideous Aspect. Sooner or later all the grimaces and frightened looks sink into the lining with the spell and turn it sour. This one is very old. Lean forward, Poly: I need to be able to reach the hair at your nape.”

  Poly did so reluctantly, cupping Onepiece’s suddenly restless head with her hands and feeling that the space was already entirely too crowded as it was.

  “Much better,” said Luck cheerfully, slipping one arm around her neck. The other arm went around her shoulders, and Poly was able to renew her acquaintance with Luck’s ink-stained collar while Luck muttered into her hair. Terrifyingly, Poly found that she could understand almost everything he was saying.

  Finally he said: “Give me your hand, Poly. Not the antimagic one.”

  “But– oh, wait a moment.”

  Poly reshuffled Onepiece to rest against Luck’s shoulder and wriggled her normal hand free, which Luck grabbed with more speed than gentleness and wrapped around a thick hank of hair.

  “Think of it as magic,” he told her, nudging his shoulder into hers to accommodate Onepiece’s head. “Well, it is; but I mean the hair itself. Think of it as a skein of magic that you want to cut in half.”

  “Shall I cauterize it?” asked Poly dubiously.

  Luck said: “No!” hastily, tugging her hand away. “Poly, you don’t listen. I specifically want it not cauterized!”

  Poly made a rude face at Luck’s collar that had to be quickly smoothed away when Luck’s collar was replaced with Luck’s face, but the rather closer look he gave her suggested that he’d caught the tail end of it anyway.

  Using her arm as a demonstration, he curled his fingers around her wrist and squeezed tight.

  “Cinch it, you see? Then twist and tug.” He demonstrated that, too, prompting a muttered ‘ow!’ from Poly, and added: “If we’re lucky, that’ll do it.”

  Poly wanted to ask what would happen if they weren’t lucky, but Luck was gazing at her expectantly, his nose mere inches from her own, and even being more or less hugged by Luck was better than being stared at by him. She reached back for the bunch of hair that Luck was scraping together again, and twisted.

  At once her head was lighter and her hand heavier, loose tendrils springing up to tickle her ears. When Poly shook her head in fascination, her freshly cut hair dusted Luck’s cheeks.

  He said: “Hey!” but didn’t move away, and Poly refused to feel apologetic. She was surrounded by Luck–Luck’s arms, his magic, his sharp chemically smell–and if he was slightly inconvenienced by that, well, serve him right. He gathered the hair, which was longer again than she’d realised, and from the vague hum Poly sensed coming from it, he should be well pleased with the success of their experiment.

  Poly didn’t realise Luck had finished gathering hair until he said: “You’d better hold the dog, Poly,” and it was borne in on her that they’d been sitting quietly for some minutes without moving, and that Luck needed her to hold Onepiece again in order to disengage himself.

  She murmured her apologies, faintly surprised at herself for becoming comfortable enough with Luck’s somewhat pushing presence to forget it, and curled her arms beneath Onepiece.

  “Got it!” said Luck cheerfully, heaving up armfuls of hair.

  Poly, feeling somehow chilled now that Luck’s warm presence had moved away, climbed carefully to her feet with Onepiece’s skinny legs dangling on either side of her hips.

  She was wondering if she should wake him for breakfast–or was it lunch? Time had gone a little strange today–when someone in the kitchen screamed. It was a staccato scream; short, sharp and possibly angry, and in the astonished silence that followed, Onepiece muttered sleepily: “Wasn’t me.”

  Luck said thoughtfully: “Huh. Margaret doesn’t usually scream,” and took off at a dash.

  Poly, following more slowly with Onepiece, her anti-magic arm swiftly ungloved, came across a scene as macabre as it was bright. Margaret, a chocolate held between two shaking fingers, was gazing wide-eyed at the kitchen table, upon which a semicircle of gremlins were sprawled around a cheerfully-coloured box. Their faces were smeared with melted chocolate and they were quite dead.

  “I almost ate one!” said Margaret frantically. She managed to drop the chocolate at last, flinging it away in her haste to be rid of it, and it tumbled stickily past the gremlins. She wiped her hand furiously on her apron, scrubbing away the slightest trace of melted chocolate, and when Poly skirted the table to put a comforting arm around her waist, Margaret subsided into the hug with a shudder.

  “Huh,” said Luck, observing the top of the
chocolate box. “They’re for you, Poly.”

  “Thank you, I’m sure!”

  “No, they’re addressed to you. ‘Miss Polly, from an ardent admirer’.”

  “How charming,” Poly said, with a dry mouth. She passed Onepiece to Margaret, who seemed glad to have a warm body to cuddle, and tugged her glove back over her antimagic arm. “Can you do anything for the gremlins?”

  “What? Oh no, they’re dead as doornails. The others will probably come along later and collect them. I think they stuff them and hang them on their side of the walls.”

  Poly sighed, tugging her laces tight. “Well, you wanted someone to try and kill me. Now they have.”

  “Again,” agreed Luck. “All very helpful.”

  “I’m so glad you think so,” Poly told him, unable to repress a faint smile. Neither was she able to repress the shiver that followed a moment later. “Wait, what do you mean, again?”

  “Third attempt, Poly. We had an explosive in a Journey spell the first time. The second attempt was more of a gentle brush, so I could only catch a trace of it: this time should be much easier.”

  “But when did someone try to kill me before?” protested Poly, interrupting Luck. He was muttering something distinctly magical to himself. She categorically refused to believe that the bomb in the Journey spell was anything more than mischief directed at Luck himself.

  “When I put you to sleep in the kitchen two days ago,” he said, between mutters. The chocolate box lid was luminescing faintly, swirls of Luck’s golden magic putting coils of something else into sharp relief. “Someone tried to kill you then. I thought they might.”

  “Do you mean to say,” demanded Margaret, in building indignation, “That you put Poly to sleep and left her in my kitchen to be murdered?”

  Poly, somewhat amused to note that Margaret was more concerned by the idea of a body in her kitchen than the thought of Poly’s murder, was able to say calmly enough: “Well, it’s done now. Ronin must have scared away the murderer before they had a chance to finish me off.”